This new variety of lily plant originated as a seedling which first flowered at Sandy, Oreg., in 1977 and is one of a group of seedlings planted by me with the object of producing large flowered, semi-upright Oriental hybrids with increased virus tolerance and suited to forcing into flower out-of-season, heretofore unknown in the lily breeding art.
The desired objective was achieved by my using as the mother plant a selected seedling from the `Imperial Silver` strain and a selected form of the species Lilium nobilissimum as the pollen parent. The selected seedling resulting from this parentage produces flowers having an outfacing, semi-upright orientation, extremely large in size with unusually broad tepals which have distinctly frilled and fluted margins, unusually thick substance and pure white coloration, a combination unique among Oriental hybrid lilies; and it also possesses unusually strong, stout stems with exceptionally broad leaves. It was for these reasons that this seedling was selected by me for propagation, and I asexually reproduced the plant at Sandy, Oreg. by bulb scale propagation and also by natural propagation from bulblets with such success that propagation was carried on through several successive generations by bulb scale propagation and by tissue culturing from bulb scale explants. It was thereby determined that the novel and distinctive characteristics of the new variety would hold true under asexual propagation from generation to generation and appeared to be firmly fixed.
The clone of this new variety was found to be vigorous and a good grower and propagator, as observed at Sandy, Oreg., and it was also found to be well suited to forcing out-of-season when the bulbs are dug at the appropriate time and properly precooled. For example, late October-dug bulbs, properly precooled and potted in January, will flower under glass in western Oregon, in an average of one hundred and ten to one hundred and fifteen days, with no supplementary lighting and at moderate greenhouse temperatures.